Games and amusement devices are well known in the art having attained a virtually endless variety of structures, apparatus and methods. As a result, a substantial number of quiz games, memory games, puzzles, card testing games, and the like have been provided by practitioners in the art. With the advent of small, relatively low cost electronic devices such as microprocessors and relatively low cost memory devices, a virtually endless array of computerized games and quiz devices have proliferated. Using a small microprocessor and its associated memory, practitioners are able to produce devices which are physically relatively small such as handheld or desktop apparatus which are nonetheless surprisingly complex in their programming and in their game play. Utilizing this complexity and the availability of substantial memory in such devices, practitioners have provided apparatus which enables one to test various fields of knowledge and to receive answers and evaluation. In others, a further system of rewards such as amusing or entertaining sound and visual effects are provided to motivate the participant. Some devices maintain scores which allow competitive play between a plurality of players or sole participation with the motivation of achieving an ever higher score. Such computerized apparatus have also included so-called self learning or programmed learning studies which present a series of challenges and answers and which track incorrect questions for more frequent presentation until the participant successfully answers them. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,996 issued to Stoner sets forth a TEACHING MACHING having circuitry for selection and display by which problems are presented to a student. A plurality of switches are provided to receive the student's response and means are provided to evaluate the answer. Various reward mechanisms are utilized to motivate the student. Additional circuitry within the unit allows an ongoing or dynamic evaluation of the student's proficiency and allows focusing of the question areas in response to problems evidenced by frequent incorrect answers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,411,628 issued to Laughon, et al. sets forth an ELECTRONIC LEARNING AID WITH PICTURE BOOK providing an electronic question and answer unit and associated book having a plurality of images therein. A selected one of an associated group of numbered printed pictorial presentations is randomly selected by the handheld learning aid and the operator attempts to correctly respond to the pictured object. Scoring functions and displayed reward phrases provide positive reinforcement of learned skills.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,995 issued to Sado sets forth an ELECTRONIC LANGUAGE LEARNING MACHINE having a memory within which a plurality of words are stored. A submemory having subdata relating to the words is also stored therein. A control unit connected to the memory and the submemory derive the stored words and related subdata and present the words and subdata on a display.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,164,078 issued to Goldfarb sets forth an ELECTRONIC QUIZ APPARATUS having a central unit which supports a plurality of buttons including a set of number buttons and a set of alphabet buttons. A further set of answer buttons and various functional buttons such as memory, clear, add, subtract, multiply and divide are also provided. The units supports a display for visual communication with the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,959,017 issued to Thompson, et al. sets forth an ELECTRONIC LEARNING DEVICE for teaching how to handle money. The student provides an input to the device which in a preferred embodiment is inputted by a plurality of keys selecting the learning activities and its difficulty level. The device requests that the student engage in randomly selected current identification and manipulation problems. A speech synthesizer and/or visual display serve to generate requests to the students concerning the students response.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,137,457 issued to Howard, et al. sets forth an ELECTRONIC TEACHING DEVICE which provides several mathematical activities to enhance the student's understanding of numbers by pictorially displaying the proper values. The target activity emphasizes logical reasoning and problem solving.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,139,423 issued to McCormack, et al. sets forth an ELECTRONIC TEACHING DEVICE which provides several mathematical activities including place value, trade, target, solve it, word problems, estimate, select and calculator. The various problems test the user's knowledge on an interactive basis.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,203,705 issued to Hardy, et al. sets forth a WORD SPELLING AND DEFINITION EDUCATIONAL DEVICE having an electronic spelling correcting machine which compares an input term against a list of terms in memory and validates spelling. Various games are incorporated to motivate the user. For purposes of game playing, the words incorrectly used from the user list are biased in such fashion that they are picked in a quasi-random fashion such that the words played incorrectly are selected with greater frequency than words played correctly.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,586,889 issued to Goodman sets forth a HANDHELD TEACH AND TEST DEVICE for recording individual answers to a set of questions selected from several sets of questions with each set having an identification code. The device includes a selector for entering an identification code to select one of the sets of questions. The indicator serially prompts for an answer to each question within the set. Response buttons are provided for entering an answer to each question.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,413,355 issued to Gonzalez sets forth an ELECTRONIC EDUCATIONAL GAME WITH RESPONSE ANIMATION having a housing supporting a response character which is animated directly responsive to input signals provided by the user. Preferably, the animated indicia comprises a distinctive character which produces animated movements of approval in response to questions being answered correctly while providing a negative animated reaction to an incorrect answer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,030,101 issued to Ikemoto, sets forth a VOICE OUTPUT DEVICE FOR USE IN ELECTRONIC APPLIANCE having a first member for detecting generation of data concerning starting or completion of operation of the electronic appliance, a memory for storing messages to be verbally transmitted, a second member for selecting in response to an output signal from the first member and a third member for verbally transmitting the selected message to the operator.
While the foregoing described prior art devices have filled the need for interactive responsive teaching and self-learning devices relatively well, there exists a continuing need in the art for evermore interesting, amusing and entertaining educational type games in which the user is more strongly motivated to participate.